And also looked… pitiable? For a genocidal murderer, ‘The Alien’ (as actor Jonathan Gunning is credited in the episode) cut a remarkably sad figure. It was like seeing those post-capture photos of Saddam Hussein looking scrawny with the dishevelled beard of a Lord of the Rings extra. Trust this series to finally open the door to the villain’s lair and what’s inside is… feelings.
Feelings are central to this sensitive sci-fi, which, gunfire notwithstanding, has been an antidote to every macho, battle-heavy alien splatter-fest elsewhere in the genre. Put it this way, could you imagine this series having a videogame tie-in? If it did, it’d be one of those beautifully rendered indies where characters wander around artily desolate landscapes having emotional revelations rather than locking and loading and blowing up enemy bases. Remember what beautiful French fantasy The Returned did for the zombie genre? That’s War of the Worlds does for alien invasions.
That’s not to say War of the Worlds lacks action. Jonathan and Chloe’s chase was expertly tense, with the pleasant surprise of being accompanied not by a throbbing techno track as it might have been elsewhere, but by the same minimalist orchestral score as the show’s dreamier moments.
The robo-dog attack on the ski resort too, was high-tension. The switch in tone from calm to chaos was masterfully handled. The almost silent bullet took out the first soldier just when things seemed peaceful, his body dropping to the ground while we were all distracted by what promised to be an emotional thank you from Catherine to Mokrani.
Catherine turned out to be the one to thank, after her high-tension, real-time science-experiment gifted humanity with an actual weapon to disable the invaders. Though, as it was her signal that first drew the aliens in, perhaps we’ll just agree to call it evens. It seemed almost certain that Sophia was on the way out after big sis told her she was proud of her. Redemptive emotional closure not followed by immediate and bloody death? Keep the surprises coming.
